Photos courtesy of Chelsea Ann Woolcock, http://www.chelseasconfidentcreations.com. Bull moose compete for the attention of a nearby cow in a neighborhood off of North Cohoe Loop Road in Kasilof on Sunday. The moose sparred for a half hour to 45 minutes in easy view of homes and the road.

Redoubt Reporter

Living in a high moose traffic area off North Cohoe Loop Road in Kasilof for the last two and a half years — and in Alaska for 17 — the thrill of seeing moose up close has lost a little of its excitement for Chelsea Ann Woolcock.

That’s bound to happen eventually, when most times she opens her deck door to let her dog out at night there’s a moose within 5 feet of her house.

“This last spring I think the same cow and baby (that are in the neighborhood this year) were in the road and I had to drive slowly while they were running right in front of me. It’s cute and cool but you get so used to it it’s like, ‘Really? I’ve got to get to town. Run in the woods, already,’” Woolcock said.

But Sunday, moose in her neighborhood gave her a renewed sense of awe as she witnessed two bulls spar with each other for a half hour to 45 minutes.

“It was really cool. I was really excited. I couldn’t hardly sleep last night, I kept thinking about it. I didn’t want to come home but I finally left them alone to do their thing,” she said.

Woolcock runs her own graphic design business, Chelsea’s Confident Creations, from home on Fairway off of Cohoe Loop. She was driving home about 6 p.m. Sunday when she saw two bulls, about 4 years old, she estimated, in a neighbor’s yard, slamming their antlers into each other. She figures they were competing for a cow in the area.

Eventually the jousting match broke up, one bull stopped for a snack, while the other headed into the woods in the direction the cow had gone, Woolcock said.

“We see a lot of moose around here, but you don’t get to see stuff like that a lot,” she said.